April 21, 2025: Two Announcements for DM Readers
Matthew informs us that he’s taking a month off to focus on completing a new book. It’s a new interpretation of John of the Cross’s poetry using the Four Paths of Creation Spirituality. John of the Cross wrote about the three paths of purgation, illumination and union as a structure to talk about our spiritual journey. But Matthew believes these three paths distorted and dishonored his poetry, whereas the Four Paths will elevate it. While Matthew is focusing on his writing, he has asked his friend and colleague Gianluigi Gugliermetto to fill in on the DMs. GG (Matthew’s nickname for him) has been collaborating with Matthew for years. He is a theologian and Episcopal priest who was awarded his Ph.D. in Religion from Claremont Graduate University in California, where he specialized in feminist and process theology. GG is the founder of Creation Spirituality Italy, and most recently of Mistica Evolutiva www.misticaevolutiva.it. He is also available for spiritual counseling online. See www.gianluigigugliermetto.com. Meanwhile, Matthew will continue to do a weekly video.
April 22, 2025: A Second Announcement & Earth Day, 2025
First, we want to acknowledge the loss of Pope Francis who died yesterday. He was a champion for the Earth. His first encyclical, Laudato Si, was dedicated to that cause. We will reflect more on the pope in a future DM. The second announcement is about the forthcoming 24-week course on “Jesus and the Christ Consciousness” with Shift Network. One third of it will be on re-examining who Jesus is and what he taught, and two-thirds will be drawing on the great mystics-prophets who tried to live and teach Christ’s teachings over the centuries. Included in the 24-week class will be several current thinkers and activists whom Matthew admires. Among them are: Mirabai Starr, Andrew Harvey, Neil Douglas Klotz, John Philip Newell, Bruce Chilton, Rabbi David Zaslow, and Christina Cleveland, each of whom will teach a class. Gianluigi Gugliermetto will lead a process class where students interact among themselves. Matthew believes we are on the cusp of a Christianity or Christ Path 2.0. To register for this class, click on the link below. And a blessed Earth Day to one and all as we love and work to protect our dear Mother Earth.
April 23, 2025: Retrieving the Empty Tomb
(This is the first of Gianluigi Gugliermetto’s DMs as he subs for Matthew while Matthew works on his next book.) At a time when Christian Nationalism is rampant, we may ask if Christianity has any resources to counteract it. Indeed it does. One is the tradition of the Empty Tomb. In his book A Spirituality Named Compassion, Matthew Fox lamented that Christianity historically placed too much emphasis on the cross of Jesus and not enough on his empty tomb. The cross is often seen as a symbol of salvation, when actually it was an implement of torture. Meanwhile, the Empty Tomb as a symbol is very rich. The Empty Tomb is primarily a symbol of creativity and liberation. Because the tomb is open and because someone has actually exited from it, it is a tomb in motion, a circle in motion. Thus, a spiral. Why is such a symbol so important in our times? Because the Jewish and Christian revelation is that the human history, while spiral, has a direction. The direction is the increase of love-justice in the world. *
April 24, 2005: Retrieving the Cosmic Christ
We are reflecting on the Empty Tomb as a Christian symbol. The Gospel accounts of the Empty Tomb present a very specific detail: the linens in which Jesus’ corpse was wrapped are left behind. They stayed inside the tomb. This is quite a clear message of letting go, leaving behind the trappings of death. Nevertheless, Christianity has elevated these linens into a holy relic. The “Shroud of Turin” has corroborated a vision of Jesus as a “man of sorrow.” (Interestingly, Gianluigi Gugliermetto was born in Turin.) Both the cross and the shroud seem to exalt pain and death. Early Christians did not feel or think in this way. In contrast, the notion of the Cosmic Christ, which almost disappeared in modern Christianity, meant that the presence of the Risen Life was felt everywhere—in all creation, as well as within the individual and the community.
April 25, 2025: The Empty Tomb and Deep Ecumenism
When patriarchal cultures — such as Judaism at the time of Jesus — bury the dead in caves, they perform a paradox, symbolically speaking. The cave symbolizes the body of the mother, from which a new life will be born. Thus, burying someone in a cave is by itself an affirmation of faith in the resurrection. However, “mother” and “woman” are also connected to “the body,” which in patriarchal theology is often thought of as sinful. And this misogyny is on blatant display in most presidential pronouncements of late. Earth-based spiritualities, on the other hand, can boast an array of symbols which celebrate the feminine principle. For Christians, then, exploring deep ecumenism with earth-based spiritualities is even more necessary than it ever was.
April 26, 2025: Science and the Cosmic Christ
Albert Einstein said: “We need a cosmic religion.” He saw his own religious heritage, that of Judaism, as “an ethical code that sanctifies life.” He would be horrified today at the crimes perpetrated by the state of Israel, as many Jews are. Many times Matthew has called Christians to move from a small vision of Jesus as “personal savior” to the awareness that Divine Wisdom, exemplified to the highest degree in the life of Jesus, is present everywhere. It is a cosmic reality, not just a human reality, and surely not a Christian possession. In many ways, this means moving from an obsession with the cross to a real faith in the resurrection. One cannot explore the meaning and power of the Cosmic Christ without a living cosmology, a living mysticism, and the spiritual discipline of art as meditation. In other words, we are bound to the holy trinity of science (knowledge of creation), mysticism (experiential union with creation and its unnameable mysteries) and art (expression of our awe at creation).*
*Please note: Unless otherwise noted, italicized quotations are from Matthew Fox.
The DM Team warmly welcomes Gianluigi Gugliermetto as he substitutes for Matthew while Matthew is finishing his newest book. GG’s DMs begin on April 23, 2025.
Banner image: “Empty sepulchre.” Image by Riccardo Cuppini on Flickr.
Recommended Reading
The Coming of the Cosmic Christ: The Healing of Mother Earth and the Birth of a Global Renaissance
In what may be considered the most comprehensive outline of the Christian paradigm shift of our Age, Matthew Fox eloquently foreshadows the manner in which the spirit of Christ resurrects in terms of the return to an earth-based mysticism, the expression of creativity, mystical sexuality, the respect due the young, the rebirth of effective forms of worship—all of these mirroring the ongoing blessings of Mother Earth and the recovery of Eros, the feminine aspect of the Divine.
“The eighth wonder of the world…convincing proof that our Western religious tradition does indeed have the depth of imagination to reinvent its faith.” — Brian Swimme, author of The Universe Story and Journey of the Universe.
“This book is a classic.” Thomas Berry, author of The Great Work and The Dream of the Earth.
A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice
In A Spirituality Named Compassion, Matthew Fox delivers a profound exploration of the meaning and practice of compassion. Establishing a spirituality for the future that promises personal, social, and global healing, Fox marries mysticism with social justice, leading the way toward a gentler and more ecological spirituality and an acceptance of our interdependence which is the substratum of all compassionate activity.
“Well worth our deepest consideration…Puts compassion into its proper focus after centuries of neglect.” –The Catholic Register
